From NMU to Fifa manager

Proud Nelson Mandela University alumnus Zimbabwean-born Solomon Mudege lives up to his rising star award.

In the 13 years since he first graduated with a BCom human movement sciences: sport & recreation degree in 2005, he has been promoted to Fifa senior development manager.

Mudege is also an MA human movement science and Fifa/international centre for sports studies/NMU programme sport management graduate.

Like most boys growing up in Zimbabwe, Mudege’s passion was playing soccer, but when he realised he would not play professionally, he decided a career in sports management seemed an acceptable compromise.

“I watched global sport events and could see there was a lot of preparation and organisation that went into delivering a sport event,” Mudege said.

“I also realised that there were a range of languages used in international sport.

“One of my earliest memories of the Fifa World Cup was listening to the Cameroon players being interviewed in French at the 1990 Fifa World Cup in Italy. I was fascinated, so when I was in high school, I studied French as one of my subjects and I am now comfortable speaking French as well,” he said.

Upon graduating, Mudege began his career working for Fifa in Switzerland, starting as a Fifa master trainee, and then the Fifa marketing alliances manager and now as senior development manager.

His role now is to focus on development programmes in Africa.